Conclusion

Nvidia GeForce GTX 690 2x2 GB is the world’s fastest graphics accelerator being as much as 95% faster than the today’s flagship single-GPU Nvidia product – GeForce GTX 680 2 GB. The new Nvidia creation boasts mind-blowing performance, which is so incredibly high that it simply makes no sense to invest in this card unless your monitor supports resolutions above 1920x1080. And in 2560x1600 resolution, which is currently the highest resolution possible (on single-monitor configurations), GeForce GTX 690 will deliver comfortable gaming experience in any contemporary game even with enable antialiasing. And this performance won’t be excessive in such games as Metro 2033: The Last Refuge or Total War: Shogun 2.

I would like to specifically stress superb energy-efficiency of the new GeForce GTX 690. As we have just seen, a system equipped with one dual-GPU Nvidia graphics accelerator consumes about 112 W less under peak operational load than a system with a pair of slightly overclocked AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards. I doubt that the owners of graphics cards like that ever pay attention to their power bills, but Nvidia’s advantage here is beyond obvious. Moderate level of generated noise will also be a pleasant bonus for the owners of these graphics cards. Of course, we were truly impressed with the unique packaging and an enclosed prybar: Nvidia’s out-of-the-box PR move has definitely been extremely successful. Keep up such creativity, guys!

Now we are looking forward to the dual-GPU response from AMD. And from now on the ultimate dream-machine of every dedicated and wealthy gamer out there will look something like that: